Her Room
by xoxosatan
Summary: The Tardis is meddling and people keep finding her room. A wolf howls across the universes. Sort of character/reaction study. Au-ish.
1. Martha

People keep finding Her room. Each make their own decisions and choices, have their own thoughts and revelations. All are changed. These are their stories, carefully interwoven with Hers and His.

* * *

Martha sighed.

Just another day in heaven with a madman in a blue box, a perfectly, wonderfully, fantastic man…

Who didn't see her in _that _way.

Honestly, he was everything she'd ever wanted _and more_. Sure, there was clearly some _baggage_ but, hey, everyone needed time and he was a _Time Lord_ for crying out loud! He had enough time in the whole bloody universe! He was bound to move on.

_Right?_

Martha was feeling particularly huffy as a result of another of the Doctor's 'moments', where she'd been talking, he was listening, and then suddenly, he wasn't. He got that Look on his face. Martha wasn't entirely sure what that Look was but she knew it needed a capital letter.

She continued to grumble as she headed down the corridor that led to her room, completely oblivious to the TARDIS' meddling with her layout. In fact, Martha barely noticed that she was not in the right corridor until she came nose to nose with a dead end that, by her memory, should not have been there. Utterly perplexed, she glanced up out of her thoughts and finally took in her surroundings.

Definitely not her corridor.

Glancing to her left she saw a simple wooden door. Around the equally as simple metal door handle, however, were various strange markings, like miniscule and intricate designs, which were barely discernible against the dark, oiled wood.

To her right was another door, and although this one was made out of the same wood, there was the tiniest and most beautiful carving of a magnificent rose just above the door handle. It too had the same markings as the other door, almost like a language, like names…

Ah.

This, this was not good. This was-

Hang on. That's not… No, it couldn't be…Could it?

Martha's head whipped back to the door on her left then back to the one on her right when it suddenly dawned on her.

_Oh._

An elephant took up permanent residence in her stomach, which technically was now located somewhere six feet below the floor.

This was _Her_ room.

And just across the way, barely two steps, was _His_.

Anger and hurt and guilt and betrayal waged an ugly war in her usually rather intelligent brain, clouding her mind with an emerald tinted haze.

Without even realising what she was doing, her arm shot out of its own accord and violently wrenched open the door to _Her_ room, her barging body charging furiously over the threshold. At the sight before her though, she came to an abrupt halt.

Oh.

The room was simple. There were a few clothes lying haphazardly on the worn and deep-seated armchair in the corner. In the centre of the room a king sized bed with a headboard made of the same dark wood as the door, and beautiful white and blue sheets, like the sky and the stars, were still slightly rumpled. A lovely cashmere throw lay folded at the foot of the bed. Twin round bedside tables were occupied with books and jewellery, pens, pieces of paper, a pink and yellow teacup, a mug with bananas on it, a camera and a phone.

What really took the oxygen from Martha's lungs? The photographs.

Everywhere.

The most beautiful landscapes. Oceans, rivers, deserts, mountains, valleys, and volcanoes. Some were bizarre with blue hills and orange skies with 5 suns and 7 moons all sharing the sky at once. There were vast cities and lookouts, citadels and castles, temples and palaces. A thousand different planets and universes, solar systems and times; always the same people.

A woman, blonde and beautiful, with a mega-watt smile that was infectious, golden brown eyes that grinned and whispered, and high cheek bones dusted the sweetest colour of her namesake; Rose.

In many of the pictures she was with him, his brown hair tousled or sticking up in every direction, his manic grin matching her contagiousness, his deep eyes _laughing_.

Others had Rose Tyler with another man with barely any hair and ancient blue eyes, always accompanied by a heavy leather jacket. Scrawled next to a picture of this man was a quote, perhaps an inside joke, "_Many places have a North_." The handwriting was neat, if a little rushed, and Martha found herself picturing Rose, this phantom girl who seemed to be the very air around her.

Sometimes there's another man, extraordinarily handsome with brown hair and the looks of a military man turned male model.

Sometimes, the photos were of the three of them, the older man with the leather jacket, the gorgeous younger man, and Rose, laughing or pulling faces or trying to be serious and failing miserably. There was one photo that made Martha smile. In it, the man in the leather jacket and Rose, looking awkward, silly, and smiling at each other indulgently, were dancing.

However, there was one photo in particular that caught her eyes. It was of Rose and the Doctor, though someone else had taken the photo when neither was ready, or perhaps they weren't even aware of it. They weren't in the TARDIS, instead appearing to be at a rectangular dining table, the Doctor's long tan coat resting on Rose's shoulders. However, it wasn't the domesticity of the image that captured her, it was the expressions on their faces.

Like there was no one else in the whole world, in the whole universe, in all of Time and Space, but them.

A sob rose in Martha Jones' throat and she put a hand to her lips, her fingers brushing her cheeks in the process. She wasn't startled to find them wet with tears. In that moment, Martha knew.

She just knew.

Standing in that woman's room, she let her tears fall and realised she was not crying because it had finally hit her that the Doctor would never love her that way. No, the sadness within her was more. Her sorrow was for these two people, human and Time Lord, who had lost everything. And she finally understood.

Glancing around one final time, letting the ghost of Rose Tyler wash over her, Martha backed out of her room. Closing the door softly and reverently behind her, she gently laid her palm against the wood, for a moment feeling the hum of the woman who used to live there.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered to the dark wood.

Looking towards the roof she said, "Thank you," and knew by the rush of warmth the TARDIS bathed her in that the ship understood. Because, she realised, the TARDIS had also lost Rose, as had Martha; a fellow human, with a heart like hers, gone and never coming back.

Casting a final look over her shoulder at the two doors, Martha walked back the way she had come, grateful for the TARDIS rearranging so she arrived at her room sooner.

It was perhaps selfish of her, Martha thought to herself later as she pulled on her pajamas, but she asked the ship anyway that, if at all possible, Martha wouldn't find that room again. The ship hummed in her head, sending a tingling whisper in acknowledgement of her request. With the knowledge the TARDIS had given her, Martha Jones vowed she would be there for the Doctor as his friend, fiercely protecting him from himself, in honour of one who, really, they had all lost.

* * *

Drop a review, let me know if this is any good! :) xx


	2. Jack

Jack barked out a laugh as the Doctor's manic grin stretched across his face.

"It's good to see you Doc," Jack smiled and clapped a hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"You too Jack, you too." He looked distant for a moment and Jack wondered where his mind was but before he could ask, the Doctor said, "The TARDIS says your old room is waiting for you just down the hall to the left, curving right, past the swimming pool, 3 steps diagonally from the library, forth room on the- no wait, never mind. She moved it for you. Straight ahead. It's on your right." He beamed at Jack before turning to the controls once more.

Jack snorted but headed down the hallway and was about to turn right when he felt an unconscious urge to follow the corridor further. A slight hum in his mind told him the TARDIS was responsible for this, yet now he had started Jack found he intrinsically knew he needed to do this.

But do _what?_

He rounded the corner and found himself in a softly lit hallway. He jerked to a halt at the sight of the two doors at the end of the hall glowing iridescently golden.

All at once he could see her, as if watching a movie of the phantom her, bouncing around him with that beautiful tongue-in-teeth smile, giggling, dancing, singing, and so _alive_. His feet pulled him forwards without his consent and he found himself outside the Doctor's door and _Hers_.

Then he was opening the door and stepping through into her room and back into the past. The shock of it took his breath away. Her room was exactly as he remembered. Nothing had changed.

Except, well, everything had.

Slowly and without thought Jack began to move around her room, taking in all the photographs of the glorious moments of her, really too-short a life with the Doctor.

Oh _god_, the _Doctor._

Jack knew of course that the Doctor had had other companions. Hell, he'd had nine whole other lifetimes with companions and a wife and a family and a place where he wasn't alone.

But you never loved just once in your life. That was why love was so precious, so heart-breaking, so all-consuming and all-powerful. Love wasn't one, it was many. There were different ways you could love. The obvious ones were family and friends and then partners, but within those very vague categories, as someone had once called them, were hundreds of thousands of millions of other forms in which you could love someone.

For the Doctor, and to some extent Jack himself, _she_ had encompassed and eclipsed love, giving it willingly to those who needed it and especially to those she loved in return.

_"Rose, you are worth fighting for."_

She was love, pure and simple in her unadulterated view of the world and the people in it, emanating kindness and compassion even in the face of death. Seeing the most beautiful in the darkest of people and places where perhaps they could not see it themselves.

Jack stepped closer to the photographs on the walls, instinctively knowing something was amiss. There was so many of them. Some were of the three of them when they had been together, some just of the leather-clad Doctor. Many more recent ones featuring herself and the current Doctor and occasionally aliens or other people but the main focus was always her and her Doctor, her tongue poking between her teeth and his hair, really _great_ hair, sticking up in crazy directions, lost in the other's eyes.

However, there was a section of the wall that all the other photographs seemed to gravitate towards yet it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the room. It was a circle of pictures in some sort of spiral formation, which when looked at from afar seemed to spread outwards to form the other hundreds of photographs. However, this wasn't really what caught Jack's attention. It was whom the photographs were of.

Mickey-the-not-so-idiotic-anymore-idiot grinned at him from the first slightly out-of-focus picture. Next was Jackie with her hands on her hips and her head thrown back with what must have been her famous cackle. Then the Doctor's ninth incarnation stared out of the photograph, brows drawn together in what must have been one of his telltale brooding expressions, yet Jack could clearly see the beginning of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. _The mouth you snogged, Jack_. He smiled as the imaginary voice with the Northern accent floated out of his memory. In the next photograph Jack was met with his own face beaming softly at the person behind the lens. He remembered that day vividly. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to immersed in the reverie…

_"Jack I can't- oh for heaven's sake Jack! Slow down! Stop! I'm so dizzy!" Rose giggled madly as he spun her round and round the console room. _

"_Careful how you speak Rosie, people might get the wrong idea!" Her ungraceful snort was abruptly cut off as Jack suddenly let her go and, completely off-balance and unprepared, Rose flew across the room and smacked into the Doctor. If that wasn't funny enough, the Doctor had also been holding a rather squashy banana at the time, which splatted all over him in his attempt to catch Rose's flailing body. The Doctor, looking so adorably shocked, could do nothing but gape at Rose, which of course sent her into an uncontrollable eruption of giggles. _

_Jack was fighting to get air into his over-worked lungs as he continued to laugh, harder than ever when the Doctor tried to right himself which only furthered the suggestive position he was currently in on the floor, Rose sprawled across him in a rather un-ladylike fashion. _

_The camera Rose had insisted on buying on their trip to the 23rd century sat on the table and before the Doctor could react there was a digitalised _CLICK _and the Doctor was captured. _

_Rose managed to roll off of the Doctor who, muttering something about stupid apes (which only made his companions laugh harder), stalked off. Jack quickly thought ahead and made several copies of the photograph, sending them to Rose's phone and, after asking and receiving a humming tingle of amusement, stored it in the TARDIS's archive. _

_Rose walked up to him then, still chuckling, and took the camera from him. When she saw the photograph she lost it again, dissolving into her legendary giggles once more. Jack beamed at her, positively reveling in the sound of her laughter and, seeing his expression, she raised the camera and _CLICK!

_"Now I have evidence that even the well-renowned Captain Jack Harkness, Time-Agent Con-Man Extraordinaire and Stud of the Universe looks like a sappy git!" She laughed as she pointed at him and backed away._

_"Oh, I'll get you Rosie!" Jack smirked and laughed at her squeal as he chased her through the TARDIS…_

Jack opened his eyes and smiled through the tears that threatened. He blinked them away and glanced at the next photograph. This was of the current Doctor, his hands stretched out, his pin-stripped suit slightly crinkled, and his brown coat billowing out superhero-cape style behind him. His hair was sticking up in every which way and his maniac grin was plastered across his face, stretched so wide Jack wondered if his face might split in two. He looked very much like he was waiting for a very special Rose-Tyler-Run-Up Hug. He knew how that would have ended. The camera would have dropped from her hand to the strap at her wrist as she ran full pelt at her Doctor, launching herself into his arms and encasing him in her own. The Doctor's brown eyes were alight with laughter and Jack didn't think he'd ever seen something as beautiful and powerful as that.

His eyes moved to the next picture and all the air left his lungs in that single moment and he felt the tears, which had been a burning tempest in his throat, violently unleashed as they cascaded down his cheeks.

It was a photo of _Her_. But she hadn't taken it. Indeed, looking more intently at it, it seemed as if she wasn't even aware of the photograph being taken, which meant she never put it up.

The Doctor had.

The photograph was _so_ _beautiful_ and Jack wished he knew all other languages with better words to truly describe what he saw before him.

Rose was sitting atop a frozen wave on Woman Wept. She was wrapped in the same heavy cashmere blanket that decorated her bed now, shards of ice glittering like diamond eyes in the material. The air had been captured in frigid sweeping movements, swirls of snow dancing around Rose as she sat in profile, looking out over the frozen waves. Her hair glowed golden as the rays as the three steadily rising suns pierced the sleepy mauve light of pre-dawn.

Jack backed away from the walls, waves of sorrow pouring down his cheeks, and moved to leave when he noticed the sheets on her bed. They had obviously been made hastily but there was a certain narrow depression on one side, the same side that had books, papers, and a mug covered in bananas on its bedside table. Jack sucked in a breath as what he was seeing truly hit him. Slowly Jack moved to the other side and, taking off his shoes, lay down on his back, allowing her precious scent of summer and love and the sky to wash over him, ignoring the clawing pain of his heart.

He didn't know how long he had been lying there enveloped in the memories of her when he felt the bed sink slightly beside him. The rightful owner of the depression in the mattress had returned and, wordlessly, he took Jack's hand in his own slender one. Together they lay, surrounded by the memory of the woman who they loved and had lost.


	3. Donna

Thanks to the positive reviews! Here's another one! :) xx

* * *

Donna threw back her head and laughed at the Doctor.

"You're full of it Sunshine!" she said with mirth before turning and throwing over her shoulder she was going for a shower. He waved her off and she turned down one of the labyrinthine tunnels of the TARDIS.

Not really paying attention, she hummed slightly to herself as she made her way when suddenly the most deliriously gorgeous scent washed over her. Donna stopped and followed it, which if she had to say what it was, she'd say it was the smell of red or gold, the sun or Time itself. She found herself outside of a door she'd never seen before.

The door was just a simple dark wood but it was the incredibly intricate carvings that captured Donna's attention. Leaning closer, she realised they were vines of ivy intertwined and weaving across the door. They were beautiful. All at once, the door swung open and Donna was blinded for a moment by a soft and thrumming golden light.

At the same time a tidal wave of the most deliciously fresh aromas swept over her. A playful breeze flicked her auburn hair and she opened her eyes to drink in the incredible beauty before her.

There was a _garden_ on the TARDIS!

Flowers of all colours and scents permeated the air. Some of the blooms were outrageously large or colourful, some alien and some from earth. It was the most beautiful thing Donna Noble had ever seen. Stepping through the doorway she glanced up at the roof only to see sky.

It was all very Harry Potter.

Caught in her rapture, she barely noticed the flowers and trees swaying slightly, as if moving out of her bewildered path and gently guiding her forward. Her roving eyes suddenly stopped on the plants at the centre of the garden. Rooted to the spot in her awe she surveyed the scene before her.

At the heart of the garden were rose bushes. Explosions of colours, the most beautiful pinks, sunshine yellows, brilliant reds, deep blues, sunburst oranges, emerald greens, and pure whites.

At the centre of the roses was a stunning white stone statue of a woman. She had hair just passed her shoulders with tendrils flicking out at the edges. Her eyes were blank and white. Full, plump lips and high cheek bones shaped her face. The woman's long dress looked like that of a Grecian goddess, long and billowing around the woman's beautiful figure, suspended in stone and time. Her hands were stretched out slightly at her sides as if about to raise them. In one hand was a simple key dangling from a gold chain. A vine crawled up the goddess's arm.

Upon closer inspection, Donna realised it wasn't just a vine, but two words repeated over and over coiling up and around the woman's arm: BAD WOLF. Donna's brilliant mind suddenly made the connections.

Roses, a woman, key, TARDIS, roses, woman, TARDIS key, roses, Rose…

_"Time's like that sometimes. You just feel it. It happens all at once, like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff."_

Stunned, Donna looked again at the woman before her and backed out of the room as the tears in her eyes from someone else's pain began to spill over onto her face. Donna ran through the TARDIS without looking up when suddenly she came to a corridor she'd never seen before.

A sense of understanding and warmth swept over her and she glanced around at the golden light that softly lit the corridor. There were two doors at the end and Donna suddenly knew where she was. She realised that she had to do this, for him as well as herself. And, she supposed, the TARDIS too with all her meddling.

She walked forwards towards the two doors, glanced at them both, and then turned to the one on her right and opened it slowly. She stepped inside and felt the beautiful scents of the garden envelop her once more though she was standing in what was clearly a woman's bedroom sans flowers.

The photographs of the woman's life surrounded Donna and she was momentarily overwhelmed. She stepped further inside and walked around the room, fingers tracing lightly over some pictures, a chair, a tea cup, a table, a mug, a camera, a book, a bed, before she returned to the door. Donna turned once more to face Rose Tyler's room, a small and sad smile on her lips. Pressing a kiss to her fingertips she taped the door lightly before stepping backwards and closing the door behind her.

She took corridors at random knowing the TARDIS would lead her back to the console room. He was still standing there when she walked across the grating towards him.

"Back so soon?" He laughed without turning around, "You usually take forever! Is the world ending or-" He cut himself off abruptly when he turned and saw her face. Without speaking or breaking eye contact, Donna walked forwards and pulled the Doctor into a tight hug, holding him and making sure he realised she wasn't letting go. With a sigh, she felt his whole body sag against her, his own arms coming around her.

She knew he knew that she knew.

Oh no, she'd started to sound like him in her own head!

Shaking herself slightly, Donna pulled back to look at him and the depth of sorrow in his eyes. She could see it brewing there and at the same time him trying to fight it, to pretend this was normal and go back to what they were before. She could see his brain working in overdrive, but before he could say something stupid, she whispered, "How can you bare it?"

They were silent for a long moment simply staring at each other, arms by their sides, eyes locked and trying so hard to read the other.

Eyes never leaving hers he murmured, "I have you."

"But it ain't always enough, is it?"

She could see he was prepared to lie, whether to make her or himself feel better she didn't know, but she raised her eyebrow in her infamous expression of, 'seriously?'

He allowed himself a brief smile at that. "No," he breathed, running a pale and slender hand over his face. He gave a brief bark of bitter laughter and said, "You know, people keep finding her room? You'd think the TARDIS would have put her room in storage, but no, instead she chooses to meddle." He huffed slightly and Donna smiled at him.

"I think she misses her almost as much as you do." She said, putting a tentative hand in his, which he gripped tightly.

They stood in silence for a while because this is what best friends do when they are always all right.

Eventually he dropped her hand and turned towards the console. Donna nodded slightly in acceptance and turned to leave when his voice calling her name stopped her. She turned to see him looking at her, the raw emotion wiped from his face but the traces drifting in is eyes, "Thank you, Donna Noble," he said.

"Anytime Doctor," she smiled. Heading back towards her room, she turned on the shower, stripped down, and stepped under the blissful droplets. She let it all spill over her, tumbling down her back and washing everything away.

Her thoughts drifted back to her, back to the woman who seemed to have woven herself into the Doctor's hearts. Donna wondered where she was, when she was, what she was thinking. She wondered why the universe could allow someone so precious to the man who spent his lifetimes saving it to be lost.


	4. The Doctor

The Doctor walked around the console room, flicking a switch here and there, putting off the inevitable. There was no need to do anything. He had no desire to leave the time vortex.

He just couldn't find the energy.

For a moment, the Doctor simply stood, hands in pockets. The very portrait of stillness and sorrow.

Until now, he had never realised just how deafening silence was.

It permeated the air around him, making it heavy and thick; smothering him. He felt a small hum from the TARDIS as she dimmed the lights slightly, honouring his solitude.

That was when he heard it.

His head shot up, eyes roaming wildly around the cavernous console room. Silence met him at every turn. Sagging with the extra weight of his traitorous hope, he shook his head, mentally berating himself for believing for even a _second_ that it was possible-

There it was again!

He was sure he'd heard it. He couldn't be that mad - and he knew better than anyone else what madness was (considering just how many planets considered him clinically so) - that he'd torture himself with that glorious sound.

Her laughter.

Suddenly the corridor to his left lit up slowly with a beautiful golden light, emitting a small glowing hum that seemed to call to him. He didn't even hesitate. He lurched forwards and flew down the corridor as if his life depended on it.

And, when he thought about it, he supposed it probably did.

He came to a shuddering stop just before reaching her corridor. Surely, this wasn't real? Perhaps the TARDIS was… No, she wouldn't do this to him. But there was just no way _She_ could be _here_. It wasn't possible. It was impossible. He would know, he'd tried _everything_.

But it felt so_ real_.

It wouldn't hurt to just…

No, he couldn't bear it today.

Occasionally, he'd find himself in her room, lying on her bed, surrounded by everything that was just _her_. He couldn't do it to often though, had to fill the silence with the clunking TARDIS and fill the emptiness with another adrenaline-fuelled adventure instead.

But that was never enough. He always went back. Back to _Her_.

This was ridiculous. He was a _Time Lord_! Not some lovesick idiot, completely incapacitated by some pink and yellow _human _girl. He could do this. He _would_ do this.

Sometimes the lies he told himself were truly pathetic.

Determination flooded his incredibly intelligent brain, and though the tiny bird in his chest sighed softly, he tried not to let the sorrow crush him.

At least not anymore than it was.

Squaring his shoulders, his brow furrowed with renewed resolve, he marched down the hallways towards _that_ corridor. The beautiful golden hum, _Her_ siren call, seemed in the air around him, in the very walls, floors, and roof of his TARDIS, as if they were one and the same.

As if they were one…

No, that couldn't.. could it?

Shaking himself, the Doctor moved on, though not nearly as far as he hoped thanks to the TARDIS and her meddling. Before he knew it or could prepare himself, he was once again in front of two doors; one was his and the other was-

Glowing. Gold and hot, energy vibrated across the simple wooden door and he seemed to gravitate toward it, as if beyond that door was the centre of the world, his world, and it was _Her_ magnetic pull that drew him inexorably closer.

He should resist, save himself from more pain.

But when it came to _Her_, well, resisting hadn't been an option for a long time.

His hand clasped the simple door handle and his body shuddered with the sudden intake of breath. The metal handle was warm and pulsing, _breathing_. In his shock, the Doctor jerked his hand back but the damage was already done.

The door swung open.

For a split second, he thought his respiratory bypass had failed him. There was no air, no up, no down, no space, no time. For the first time in a long time he couldn't hear the ever-present tick-tick of time slipping away, rearranging, or disappearing altogether. He couldn't feel any worlds moving beneath his feet because he was pretty sure the entire space-time continuum had come to a blinding halt.

His extremely large (and modest) brain felt heavy and sluggish.

Oh, what a simply wonderful delusion, the perfect hallucination. Everything was the same. Her eyes, her hair, her smile. Simply-

He dared himself to think it.

_- Rose_.

He expected the pain but it didn't come. His brain gave him a polite tap on the shoulder, sending electrical impulses to every cell in his body, asking him to politely wake up, run into her arms, and finally snog her sens- _WHAT?_

Before he could even continue his thought, the goddess before him smiled a hesitant tongue-in-teeth smile.

"Hello Doctah. S'been a while, yeah?"

Hesitant smile? Why was she hesitant?

Another tap from his brain.

Dream Rose would never be hesitant.

This time it's a bit more of a shove.

Dream Rose would be smiling, laughing, in his arms…

A rather rude (and not ginger) jolt from brain.

But that would imply…

Oh come _ON _Spaceman! Figure it out!

…Donna? No, no, no! Must. Focus! Rose is here, this is Rose! Rose is real. This is _actually_...

"Rose? Are you… I mean you're not…You're can't actually…But that's impossible." He shook his head and tried to tell himself her eyes hadn't dimmed slightly.

"Someone once told me nothin's impossible, ain't that right Doctah?" She gave a sad, almost ironic sort of smile, the kind of smile he wished he would never have to see staining her lips ever again.

"But I tried! I did everything. There was nothing else! But you… You're… And I…" His hands were in his hair, tugging at it in tight fistfuls. Pain seared along his scalp but he didn't care. His only thoughts were Rose.

"Jus' can't seem to get rid of me?" There it was, the smile, _Her_ smile, Rose's smile. And that was all it took.

The Doctor was across the room in less than 2 strides, Rose Tyler in his arms, just as she should be.

His heart was no longer lost.


	5. Rose

Final chapter... I think. Unless the Tardis wishes to make an appearance. Perhaps an epilogue may make itself known. But for now, this is it. Hope you've enjoyed :)

* * *

Rose Tyler opened her eyes.

Shock, disbelief, hope… Agony.

Her eyes scrunched tight once more.

_No more, please I can't bear it anymore. Enough. _

Yet when she opened her eyes once more, she knew she'd finally lost it.

For before her very eyes was the walls of her room… On the TARDIS.

Impossible didn't begin to cover it.

She pinched herself and was rewarded with a sharp burning pain on her skin, yet the scene before her did not waver.

_Well, when had that ever worked anyway?_

Pulling herself to her feet, Rose glanced around the room she used to call home, before torchwood and the daleks and the cybermen and… Norway.

Before the 117 years she had spent 'living' in Pete's World.

Shaking her head to clear it of the fog of sadness that had become a familiar presence in her thoughts in the past century, she took a tentative step forwards hoping the movement wouldn't disturb her clearly wonderful delusion.

_I really ought to give that imagination of mine more credit…_

She had the sudden, rather ridiculous urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It felt so _real. _

Her giggle bounced around the cavernous space and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

Silence greeted her. Even the TARDIS was without her usual tingling hum as if she to was holding her breath.

Well, if this was truly her imagination, she wondered when her Doctor would make an appearance. Usually he was there waiting for her in these situations. Bit odd that really.

What if…?

No, not possible. Nope. No, no, no, absolutely not. No chance. Zilch, zip, nada.

Unless…

She laughed again.

_"Bad Wolf."_

_"Indubitably this is the 'Bad Wolf' scenario."_

_"The things you've seen… The darkness…The Big Bad Wolf!"_

_"The UN's decision, Mal Loup..."_

_"Bad Wolf One descending."_

_"And on BADWOLFTV..."_

_Schlechter Wolf_

_"Blaidd Drwg."_

_Bad Wolf Corporation._

_"Two words, following us across the universe…"_

_"A message, to lead myself here… I am the Bad Wolf."_

_"I see something of the wolf in you… You burnt like the sun."_

_"Corrupted by a bad wolf virus…"_

_"Dårlig Ulv-Stranden, it means Bad Wolf Bay."_

But that meant…

Suddenly, the song of the TARDIS filled her mind, it was like 'welcome back', I've missed you', and 'you're finally home' all rolled into one. Her heart swelled, filling her chest like a balloon.

She was here, on the TARDIS, and her Doctor was-

Standing in the doorway.

Just standing there. No 'Rose Tyler!' or 'nice to see you' or 'I've missed you' or even 'I lo-

Let's not go there again.

Suddenly feeling out of place and out of her depth, Rose gave a tentative smile. After all, she'd been gone a while. He was sure to have had other companions. Perhaps he'd moved on… Her heart constricted at the mere thought and yet he was still standing there in the doorway with that Look on his face. Whatever the Boe _that_ particular Look was, Rose wasn't sure if it was good or bad.

"Hello Doctah. S'been a while, yeah?" He was still standing there, as if the words had to travel across the void to reach him. It was so strange to see him speechless. Perhaps more had changed than she thought.

Finally, he spoke. "Rose? Are you… I mean you're not…You're can't actually…But that's impossible." He shook his head and her heart sunk slightly.

"Someone once told me nothin's impossible, ain't that right Doctah?" She couldn't help the sad sense of irony. She finally made it back and he didn't believe it. What if didn't want to?

"But I tried! I did everything. There was nothing else! But you… You're… And I…" His hands were in his hair, which had been sticking up in so many different directions already that it no longer mattered what he did. He was the epitome of a mad scientist.

"Jus' can't seem to get rid of me?" Rose couldn't help but smile at his face, the face that had plagued her dreams for the past one hundred and seventeen years. She allowed herself to feel just how good it felt to be back in the right universe, on the TARDIS, with her Doctor.

Apparently, her smile was all the Doctor needed.

He was across the room in less than 2 strides, pulling Rose into his arms as if he were pulling her home. The hug was everything their hearts had waited for wrapped in arms and sighs.

Rose Tyler was no longer lost.


End file.
